My liberal blogfriend Jay Adler has on offer a perfectly reasonable post describing Barack Obama's foreign policy as Liberal, Moderate, Careful. He briefly reviews the state of affairs in our evolving relationship with various problematic nations, and argues that Obama's approach has been salutary.
We see in the process on Afghanistan Obama’s care in foreign policy. He does not rush in. He doesn’t posture excessively. We see, too, in the parameters he set – particular to the history and the circumstances of the situation – his moderation. Not much opportunity in this setting to observe the liberalism of his foreign policy vision, but, of course, it has been apparent elsewhere, to the ridicule of the right.
On a variety of occasions during his first year in office, Obama has made statements that have acknowledged historic errors in U.S. policy and relations to other nations and regions. The Heritage Foundation has compiled a top ten list of Obama’s “apologies” and how they have “humiliated a superpower.” This is an essential distinction between liberal and conservative conceptions of U.S. foreign policy procedure, in general, and more pointedly, in how the U.S. at a now two-decade-long transition period in its existence as a world super power projects itself to the rest of the world in relation to the factual record and perceptions of its historic role.
The right will couch the issue in terms of the realpolitik of power politics. It is not wrong to do so. Sincerity, including sincere regrets, not joined with shrewd, forceful policy, is a weak currency. But politicians are people too (most of the time) and certainly those they represent possess the usual human qualities, and people do respond to what they perceive as the genuine and the fair, and apologies, or simple admissions of error, offered in the right context, can serve a purpose. However, the right conceives of an unwillingness to acknowledge error in American foreign policy as the strength of strength – the “never explain” part only of the stoic homily, because the right complains constantly.
All of this is the point of principle 10 in my Principia Liberalis: “Accountability for the past is policy for the future.” Of course, it is the deeds that matter most, but there is no better way to enable a change in relations that to express the ideas that presage the deeds. Latin America offers a prime example.
Beyond any specific points of disagreement, I would offer a significant caveat. Thus far, Barack Obama's approach, laudable as it may be to many, exhibits what Richard Landes has referred to as Cognitive Egocentrism and its subtype of Liberal Cognitive Egocentrism:
COGNITIVE EGOCENTRISM
The projection of one’s own mentality or “way of seeing the world” onto others, e.g., the teenager who is obsessed with sex, and assumes the same about everyone else. In the current situation of globalization, cognitive egocentrism has its greatest impact in the political relationships between people coming from civil societies and those raised in prime divider societies. Since the basic political principle of Prime divider societies is “rule or be ruled,” “do onto others before they do onto you,” political actors from those cultures assume the same zero-sum, domineering intentions in their opponents (the “enemy”). Since the basic political principles of civil societies is “I’ll give up trying to dominate and trust you to give it up as well,” “if I’m nice to you, you will be nice in return,” assume positive-sum attitudes in their opponents (the “other”). The current situation testifies to a dangerous mis-apprehension that works to the distinct disadvantage to civil society. The media, in particular, as the representative of civil society, emphasizes its role as empathizer, often failing to defend civil society, even exposing it to danger.
LIBERAL COGNITIVE EGOCENTRISM (LCE):The projection of good faith and fair-mindedness onto others, the assumption that “other” shares the same human values, that everyone prefers positive sum interactions. In a slightly more redemptive mode, LCE holds that all people are good, and if only we treat them right, they will respond well. This is a form of empathy that, like MOS, aspires to the radical victory of justice, and robs the “other” of his or her own beliefs and attitudes. It projects onto rather than detects what the “other” feels.
[I have noted that this tendency on a more individual interpersonal basis is a distinguishing characteristic of pathological narcissism. The convergence of LCE and Narcissism provides for a dangerous reinforcement of arrogance and insularity. Narcissistic pathology is difficult to treat in the individual; for a Nation, mutative interpretations usually end up costing lives and treasure.]
You need not go to al Manar and translate their Arabic to find examples of CE and LCE. Michael Young, opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, describes quite explicitly the differences in perception of our enemies in the Middle East and Western Liberals who believe they really at bottom are just like us:
Barack and Hassan concur, the US is waning
It’s not often that Barack Obama and Hassan Nasrallah agree, but both made important speeches this week, and both appeared to concur that American power was on the decline.
Of course Obama didn’t quite put it that way. Instead, he merely implied the growing sense of American difficulty, the fact that the United States was “passing through a time of great trial,” which he made more palatable by sandwiching it between words of encouragement and resolve. His speech to West Point cadets on Tuesday was an effort to explain to his countrymen why it was important to send an additional 30,000 or so troops to Afghanistan. But what remained, despite the soaring rhetoric toward the end of the president’s speech, was the terrible burden all this placed on an America much gloomier than it was decades ago.
His conclusion should unsettle Jay et al:
The mounting perception of American weakness will, arguably, be the most destabilizing factor in the Middle East in the coming years. It will alarm Washington’s allies and empower its foes, and Barack Obama’s stiff-upper-lip displays of candor, his persistent enunciation of American inadequacies, will only make things worse. Power may be a source of great evil, but not nearly as much as a power vacuum.
Tom Barnett offers his own version of LCE when he discusses Turkey's descent into Islamism:
Actually, it was no surprise at all
Naturally, lotsa worries in NATO that Turkey is going Islamist, but I sense that it's more a matter of Turkey just deciding it's happy to be who it is and isn't going to sugar-coat its identity anymore just to make the nervous Euros accept it in their Christians-only club. Good on Turkey, I say, because the world benefits more from a Turkey that's avowedly Islamic and successful in a globalization sense than one that performs a personality transplant to gain entry into the EU.
So the bitching continues: the West frets that Turkey doesn't take Western values into account, and the Turks know damn well that the West rarely takes Turkish interests into account, so turnabout is fair play--finally.
Turkey's economy has doubled in the last decade, and its trade and investment ties are now more eastern- and southern-focused than directed at the EU.
Their logic is impeccable: "We can't be prosperous if we live in a poor neighborhood. We can't be secure if we live in a violent one."
The assumption here is that just like secular westerners, the Turks will prefer the pleasures of prosperity more than the pleasures of strife and Jihad. He may well be correct, but history is replete with examples of nations and peoples that have chosen religious orthodoxy over secular pleasures.
However, whether or not Turkey descends further into Islamism, it is an additional data point suggesting that the perceptions of America under Barack Obama are of a nation trying to retreat into a more limited engagement with the world. (In the Middle East today, America is not the strong horse; that distinction belongs to the Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Syria axis. They may well be exaggerating their actual power but in the face of an America perceived to be in retreat, this becomes a minor detail.) In liberal terms, this is an appropriate retreat from the excesses of the pax Americana of the Neocons and George W. Bush; non-American observers understand this as abandoning traditional allies in efforts to appease current enemies.
If the key dictum in warfare is to know your enemy, it is clear that a foreign policy that is interpreted by one's enemies, who live in a zero sum world, as exhibiting weakness, is a foreign policy that will lead to greater strife as time goes on.
Of course, only the passage of time will be determinative; Barack Obama may someday be thought of as having earned his Nobel Peace Prize but if he is planting the seeds of peace around the world, it does not look like they will germinate in 2010.
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